IDRS forum (TM)

I suggest checking out Meg Cassell's reeds at www.goodtoneguild.com . She is a serious and very conscientious reed-maker, and her prices are low for the quality she provides. I think she sells wholesale to music stores.

Yeah, I'm finished with my presentation - it went well. And now I've got almost 30 reeds here that I'm NEVER gonna use!! In fact, I'm about to put almost the entire lot of them up on Ebay. Later this week sometime.

Anyone's who's interested, email me privately and I will send you the Excel spreadsheet listing all the reeds and how I found them out of the box. Out of the 29 reeds I sampled (mostly student reeds), only six "passed" my main test, the second "E" - did it sag. That's a lousy 29%. That was the biggest problem. Surprisingly, most of them had enough wood on them that with some work they might be able to perform satisfactorily. But it was extremely disappointing (to me) to find that this is what young students (middle and senior high school) are expected to play on.

Other areas of the reed that I addressed in my one hour lecture were:

Tube: did it fit on the bocal well, reamed out enough, etc. 17 out of 29 were ok - 59%.

Throat: was it shaped well, not too flat, but not perfectly round, etc. 16 out of 29 were ok - 55%

Wires: were they loose? 22 out of 29 were ok - 76%. I did not discuss the fact that most of them had 1st and 2nd wires that were placed extremely close to one another, loosing any real fulcrumicity. (Is that a word?)

Rails: Was there enough wood left on the rails for someone (who knows what they're doing) to work with? Most were fine - 25 out of 29 or 86%. (I didn't talk about the spine and/or the heart)

Tip opening: Only 13 were neither too open or too closed, that's 45%.

Did it crow?: 20 out of 29 did, 69%. 5 were kind of hard to crow.

Oh, yeah, and price: average price was $12.28. Cheapest: Chartier $6.99.

Now how's a young student even supposed to get started with a reed that won't play?!!

My lecture showed how much you can do with just a reamer, mandrel and pliers. But it obviously didn't solve all of the problems this lot of reeds had.

END RESULT - I couldn't recommend most of these reeds, unless you had someone around who knew what to do with a knife to fix them up. Just like Mark stated.

Two were totally acceptable: Fox Renard/1006 $12.50 (throat was a little flat) and Miller Marketing Select Reserve Pro $18.00 - perfect scores - played out of the box.

I didn't discuss shapes - most were what I'd call a small size, rather narrow, not much flare.

It was a fun, but also frustrating exercise.

Here's my email, for those that got this far and are still interested.

Well, Kent, my "study" wasn't entirely scientific, so I still wouldn't call the Miller Select Pro Reserve the "perfect" reed. But it played. In an emergency, I could throw one on and get a decent sound out of it, without standing on my head or doing much adjustment.

I'd say the playing difference (or lack thereof) between a $7.00 POS and the $18 Miller didn't justify going the 2 for the price of 1 route.

How much would anyone play for a reed that did everything they wanted? Hmmm, I'd pay $18 in a NY minute (the time it takes the light to turn green and the guy behind you to honk his horn at you!) I'd probably pay a lot more, $25, maybe $30. Who can say.

Speaking of Paul Hanson, he has a new cd out:

http://www.abstractlogix.com/xcart/prod … ctid=23463

Sounds wild!!

Hello Bryan, Sorry too that Wendal Jones has ended its business. I would like to recommend Paul Buttemer who makes bassoon reeds of 6 basic styles and who has designed his pricing to be attractive to high school bassoonists. paul@pbreeds.com is his email address. http://www.pbreeds.com is the website. I would recommend for first trial his most popular reed style, named "Triangle Well". Sincerely, Gerald C.

Bryan,

If your local music store would like to visit my website at www.westdoublereed.com, they may either go to the Contact Us page to request dealer information or go to the Dealer Only page to get an application.  For any music store interested in West bassoon reeds, I will send a dealer packet to include Student Reed samples.  The Student Reed is available at competitive dealer prices while the Artist Reed will be available to dealers at a later date.

Happy bassooning to all!

Glenn